Kavanaugh, the Disgust Circuit and the Limits of “Nuts and Sluts”

The Ragin’ Cajun, I believe, coined the phrase “Nuts and Sluts” to succinctly describe the tactic used by the elites I call The Davos Crowd to smear and destroy someone they’ve targeted.

Brett Kavanaugh is the latest victim of this technique. But, there have been dozens of victims I can list from Gary Hart in the 1980’s to former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn to Donald Trump.

“Nuts and Sluts” is easy to understand. Simply accuse the person you want to destroy of being either crazy (the definition of which shifts with whatever is the political trigger issue of the day) or a sexual deviant.

This technique works because it triggers most people’s Disgust Circuit, a term created by Mark Schaller as part of what he calls the Behavioral Immune System and popularized by Johnathan Haidt.

The disgust circuit is also easy to understand.

It is the limit at which behavior in others triggers our gut-level outrage and we recoil with disgust.

The reason “Nuts and Sluts” works so well on conservative candidates and voters is because, on average, conservatives have a much stronger disgust circuit than liberals and/or libertarians.

This is why it always seems to be that anyone who threatens the global order or the political system always turns out to have some horrible sexual deviance in their closet.

It’s why the only thing any of us remember about the infamous Trump Dossier is the image of Trump standing on a bed in a Moscow hotel room urinating on a hooker.

The technique is used to drive a wedge between Republican voters and lawmakers and make it easy for them to go along with whatever stupidity is brought forth by the press and the Democrats.

And don’t think for a second that, more often than not, GOP leadership isn’t in cahoots with the DNC on these take-downs. Because they are.

But, here’s the problem. As liberals and cultural Marxists break down the societal order, as they win skirmish after skirmish in the Culture War, and desensitize us to normalize ever more deviant behavior, the circumstances of a “Nuts and Sluts” accusation have to rise accordingly.

It’s behavioral heroin. And the more tolerance we build up to it the more likely people are to see right through the lie.

It’s why Gary Hart simply had to be accused of having an affair in the 1980’s to scuttle his presidential aspirations but today Trump has to piss on a hooker.

And it’s why it was mild sexual harassment and a pubic hair on a Coke can for Clarence Thomas, but today, for Brett Kavanaugh, it has to be a gang-rape straight out of an 80’s frat party in a Brett Eaton Ellis book — whose books, by the way, are meant to be warnings not blueprints.

Trump has weathered both the Nuts side of the technique and the Sluts side. And as he has done so The Resistance has become more and more outraged that it’s not working like it used to.

This is why they have to pay people to be outraged by Kavanaugh’s nomination. They can’t muster up a critical mass of outrage while Trump is winning on many fronts. Like it or not, the economy has improved. It’s still not good, but it’s better and sentiment is higher.

So they have to pay people to protest Kavanaugh. And when that didn’t work, then the fear of his ascending to the Supreme Court and jeopardizing Roe v. Wade became acute. It doesn’t surprise me, then, to see them pull out Christine Blasie Ford’s story to guide them through to the mid-term elections.

And that was a bridge too far for a lot of people.

The one who finally had enough of ‘Nuts and Sluts’ was, of all people, Lindsey Graham. Graham is one of the most vile and venal people in D.C. He is a war-mongering neoconservative-enabling praetorian of Imperial Washington’s status quo.

But even he has a disgust circuit and Brett Kavanaugh’s spirited defense of himself, shaming Diane Feinstein in the process, was enough for Graham to finally redeem himself for one brief moment.

When Lindsey Graham is the best defense we have against becoming a country ruled by men rather than laws, our society hangs by a thread.

It was important for Graham to do this. It was a wake-up call to the ‘moderate’ GOP senators wavering on Kavanaugh. Graham may be bucking for Senate Majority Leader or Attorney General, but whatever. For four minutes his disgust was palpable.

The two men finally did what the ‘Right’ in this country have been screaming for for years.

Fight back. Stop being reasonable. Stop playing it safe. Trump cannot do this by himself.

Fight for what this country was supposed to stand for.

Because as Graham said, this is all about regaining power and they don’t care what damage they do to get it back.

The disgust circuit can kick in a number of different ways. And Thursday it kicked in to finally call out what was actually happening on Capitol Hill. This was The Swamp in all its glory.

And believe me millions were outraged by what they saw.

It will destroy what is left of the Democratic Party. I told you back in June that Kanye West and Donald Trump had won the Battle of the Bulge in the Culture War. Graham and Kavanuagh’s honest and brutal outrage at the unfairness of this process was snuffing out what was left of that counter-attack.

The mid-terms will be a Red Tide with the bodies washing up on the shore the leadership of the DNC and the carpet-baggers standing behind them with billions in money to buy fake opposition.

The truth is easy to support. Lies cost money. The more outrageous the lie the more expensive it gets to maintain it.

Because the majority of this country just became thoroughly disgusted with the Democrats. And they will have no one to blame but themselves when they lose in November.

57 thoughts on “Kavanaugh, the Disgust Circuit and the Limits of “Nuts and Sluts””

I find American politics inscrutable, mind-boggling and bizarro, and have no idea what any of it means. It is like a deviant David Lynch homage. Why is Kavanaugh blubbing like an idiot? It is all so far up its own arse that to outsiders it is meaningless.

Outstanding comments! You’re so right that conservatives have a higher disgust response. Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, has documented this in his studies. A high “disgust” reaction, measured by observing brain activity in response to disgusting images, is the best predictor of the subject’s political affiliation. High disgust response=Conservative with a high level of confidence.

I also agree about a Red Wave. Dems are so desperate now because they’ve lost over 1,000 seats in state and national legislatures and governorships in the past 9 years, thanks to Obama and Co. There were already on the road to the political wilderness. That’s why they’re desperate for felons to vote, for illegals to vote! And it’s why they are now plainly desperate liars and manipulators. They are now the anti-white party of felons and illegals with no concern for the average and struggling working man. What a disaster!! They richly deserve the ruin coming to them. It used to be a grand old party in the time of Truman and JFK! Oh how far they’ve fallen!

I also liked you’re comment about Kanye West and the possibility of “unexpected” black support for Trump and perhaps some of the Repub candidates. We’ll see.

I agree with you’re points but even in lost for demodogs they win. They’ll use this to raise more money for friends in the consulting world and still lose the next round of elections. It’s a proven business cycle;-)

Well said, Tom, well said.
It just reinforces what and whom these people are :
Psychopathy is traditionally a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits.

The site of Kavanaugh turning on the waterworks and whimpering about little Jolene praying for that woman was too much for me. Researched the freak show a bit, and can only conclude that 1) Kavanaugh looks very compromised, morally (devils triangle) and politically (ken Starr) 2) This could be a watershed for Trump. I can only imagine normal people, especially women, being appalled at Trump’s lack of discernment in promoting this guy. I think his gig is up at the mid-terms, unless he fast distances himself from violence and demeaning attitudes to women, etc

To be honest Tom I just see a nation in its last convulsions. Stick whatever label you want on it, democrat, republican, libertarian, it ain’t pretty.
The bottom line is that Kavanaugh is an absolutely pathetic little man, borderline contemptible. He reflects very badly on Trump’s judgement I am afraid.
The idea that everything wrong in the Republican party can be palmed off on deranged Communists is running out of traction.
It is opaque insofar as it is an endless game of smoke and mirrors.
It seemed beyond credulity that Trump would choose such a chronic liability for the Supreme Court, hence my initial confusion, but once you abandon the precept that Trump is a noble right-thinking man, everything starts to make a lot more sense. Sorry if this deflates the optimistic libertarian in us all, but can’t see it any other Tom.

I would say that Michael Avenatti is an utter jackass, but I don’t like to speak negatively of farm animals. The only problem is that I don’t know which of them is a farm animal: Avenatti or the jackass.

I have reached my point of disgust. The fact that Lindsey Graham–LINDSEY GRAHAM–had to be the one to speak out against it all tells me plenty more than anything else about this circus that’s circling the drain. If he can get upset at what’s happening with the direction of a Senate committee, then something is really wrong. I will give Graham some credit: The death of John McCain has given him a spirit of independence that he never had before.

As for the Great Di-Fi-Lie: She is obviously the one that caused the whole process to kick into gear. First by defying Senate rules and keeping the document hidden in her dress, then pulling it out to inflict maximum political damage upon Kavanaugh, then denying that her office leaked Dr. Ford’s name to the presstitutes inhabiting the orifices of the Washington Compost. How much of that vile woman’s actions can anyone tolerate?

If this whole sordid episode doesn’t destroy our reputation in the eyes of the world, then we won’t be just circling the drain.

Just for the record here, the dossier does NOT claim that Trump peed on any hookers. Rather, it claims that Trump had Russian hookers pee on a bed once used by Obama. But it’s interesting how the claims manage to morph like that, despite the fact that anyone can just go read the dossier to find out that they’re false.

It’s sort of like the allegations that Kavanaugh threw ice at someone. The police report only says that he was among some people, one of whom allegedly threw ice, and he said he didn’t know who did it. This only underscores the fact that most people are only reading headlines or learning about this stuff via the rumor mill, rather than ever bothering to look at the actual facts.

It’s also why Politifact-level “fact” checking “works” so well. You can have an article that admits all the facts are true, then calls the whole thing false and all people will get out of it is the latter, whereas anyone who tries to point out the shill tactics like doing “fact” checks on opinions is left trying to reason with NPCs who will repeat Snopes/Politifact labels this FALSE despite their own articles pointing out that everything alleged actually happened. E.G. the infamous “did Hillary laugh about helping a child rapist beat the rap” article says yes, there’s a recording of Hillary where she laughs after describing how she knew her client was guilty and she did, in fact, keep him out of jail, but we think she was laughing for some other, unknown reason we won’t clearly state. Presumably, to them, child rape is just such a funny topic that it’s normal to randomly break out into laughter.